When Melanie Cochrane (feature image) talks about financial inclusion, she talks about resilience. As CEO of Equifax Australia and New Zealand, she leads a business built on helping people “live their financial best.” And she believes a strong national economy needs everyone at the table.
Her latest research gives that belief some numbers. Following its sponsorship of The Gender Index (TGI) Australia, Equifax analysed more than five million national director records and found that leadership teams with women in them tend to show up well on the balance sheet.
The numbers worth knowing
Majority female-led businesses hold the highest credit scores in the country. They average 959.6 out of 1200.
Gender-equal teams sit in a sweet spot. Businesses with 50/50 leadership average a score of 945 and a default rate of 0.4%, which Equifax describes as an optimal balance of credit safety and commercial scaling across many industries.
When things go wrong, equal teams lose less. If a business defaults on a loan (that means it fails to repay or breaks the loan agreement), gender-equal teams incur an average loss of $594.69. All-male teams incur $2,099.64. That’s a 71.7% reduction in loss severity.
Early-stage female-led businesses are doing well on the basics. Their average credit score is 834, compared with 821.2 for male-led peers. And their default rate is 1.1% compared with 1.2%. Male-led early-stage businesses still log 1.28 times more credit inquiries.
The scaling cliff
The Gender Index shows that Australian women start businesses in big numbers. Female representation sits at 42.2% among sole traders. By the time you reach large enterprises, it falls to just 7.0%.
Mel’s reading of the data is clear. “Australia doesn’t have a shortage of female entrepreneurial ambition,” she says. “It has a structural barrier at scale.”
The research points to systemic barriers, capital allocation patterns and unequal procurement pathways as the reasons women-led businesses struggle to grow into medium and large enterprises.
What Mel wants to see next
For Mel, the findings turn a conversation about fairness into one about opportunity. “Gender equality in business leadership isn’t just about representation,” she says. “It can have a clear commercial advantage.”
She sees gender-balanced leadership teams as a way to strengthen businesses against credit losses and financial distress, and she sees unlocking growth capital for female-led businesses as an economic opportunity for Australian market leaders today.
Her call to action goes to lenders, institutions and policymakers: shift the national conversation “from participation to progression” and take active steps to help women-led businesses scale. John Cushing, APAC CEO of mnAi and co-founder of The Gender Index, echoes the point, saying the data helps shine a light on the structural realities women face in business across the country.
A few things to take with you
- If you run a business, the data suggests that balanced leadership strengthens your position, so it’s worth looking at who sits around your decision-making table.
- If you’re building something of your own, the research reflects well on your credit profile and your ambition, and the barriers it describes sit in the system, not in you.
- If you work in finance or procurement, the scaling cliff is an invitation to look at where capital and contracts are going.
